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Baklava Beyond the basics

By Pam MellskogLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
01/10/2012 09:06:55 PM MST

Updated:
01/10/2012 09:10:11 PM MST

Alan and Janet Heath work Jan. 4 making baklava at a commercial kitchen they rent in Longmont. They have started Baklava Unlimited LLC and hope to have their dessert in retail locations soon.
(
Joshua Buck
)

Alan and Janet Heath have started Baklava Unlimited, LLC and hope to have their dessert in retail locations soon.
(
Joshua Buck
)

Baklava

Pastry ingredients:

11/4 pounds pecans and blanched almonds, finely chopped

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons sugar

11/2 pounds filo pastry

1 pound clarified butter

Syrup ingredients:

31/2 cups sugar

21/2 cups water

2 tablespoons honey

1 lemon rind

1 stick cinnamon

4 whole cloves

Directions:

In a bowl, combine nuts, cinnamon and sugar. Using a pastry brush, butter bottom and sides of an 11-inch by 15-inch by 3-inch baking pan. Lay eight sheets of filo in bottom of pan, and brush each layer generously with melted butter before placing the next layer on top. Sprinkle some of the nut mixture over that stack of filo sheets.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter two more filo sheets and layer them on the top of the nut mixture. Repeat this pattern of filo and nuts until all of the nut mixture runs out. Then generously butter the next 10 sheets of filo to create the top layer.

After thoroughly chilling, use a sharp knife to score the top of the baklava into diamond shapes. Bake for 45 minutes or until lightly browned.

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Meanwhile, to prepare the syrup, combine the sugar, water, honey, lemon rind, cinnamon and cloves in a saucepan. Bring the mix to a boil before reducing the heat and simmering the syrup for 5 minutes. Remove the lemon rind, cinnamon stick and cloves. Allow to cool completely.

Remove the pastry from the oven, and pour the cooled syrup over the hot pastry. With a sharp knife, finish cutting the pastry along scored lines. Yield: 65 pieces

Then they turned to each other and agreed. Clover honey, along with a secret quantity of lemon juice, makes their recipe one worthy of commercial success.

At least they are banking on that in 2012 -- the first year Janet Heath decided to test compliments from friends and family in the marketplace. "People say good baklava is hard to find," Heath, 50, said.

So, after years of making her version of a recipe perfected by a candy maker in Little Rock, Ark., for the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church cookbook, she decided to rent a commercial kitchen on faith.

With her husband volunteering to brush endless layers of filo dough with clarified butter, Janet Heath builds her baklava quickly -- before it has time to dry out.

Sounds simple until the Arkansas native starts counting the 12 buttered layers on the bottom, the 12 middle layers on the top -- with a trio of crushed nuts in a syrup evenly sandwiched between every other middle layer -- and then topped with 12 more layers.

The commercial kitchen's convection oven bothers her as she prepares product for the new venture, called Baklava Unlimited. The circulating hot air causes the top pastry layer to puff and brown, unlike her home oven.

But they work around that and hope to eventually branch out and bake baklava that includes cherry and apricot fillings. Even now, they sell one jazzed up with chocolate.

For now, though, they need the traditional baklava to jumpstart the enterprise.

Both fondly remember the annual fundraiser hosted by their Arkansas church and how the baklava booth always sold out. Volunteer operators even sold the warped edge pieces over vanilla ice cream -- something the locals called a Sundae in Athens.

The Brooklyn Deli at 1515 Main St. in Longmont now sells the product.

Janet Heath hopes to soon win over local coffee shops partial to locally made products.

"I'm a computer person, not a marketing person," the former computer program analyst said. "But baklava and coffee do go together."

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